Today's poet

[Harry H Howgill]

An article on poetry and mental illness on the bbc website...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12368624

Very interesting reading. It looks like there was a prog. on it yesterday on radio 4. Now on iPlayer

[Harry H Howgill]

Do we want to have another Fell Poets team at Gummers How again this year?

[freckle]

Do we want to have another Fell Poets team at Gummers How again this year?

I'll come and sip peroni and cheer this time I think!

there are an abundance of good fell poets on here, i reckon you might even win this time!

[freckle]

An article on poetry and mental illness on the bbc website...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12368624

Very interesting reading. It looks like there was a prog. on it yesterday on radio 4. Now on iPlayer

This is a brilliant article Harry thanks for highlighting it...I particularly like Edgar Allan Poe's question about whether madness is in fact a "loftier type of intelligence" ....very thought provoking

[freckle]

The Wadsworth Trog is approaching this weekend which gives me a very tenuous link to this poem

The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

there is such a lovely rhythmic quality to this poem, nice one alfster! hope you have a good race x

[freckle]

Its good to know that I'll be catching up with MG & Freckle at some races this year. Hope to see HHH and a few others too. I wanted to post something as its been so long for me and I opened my book of modern Indian Poetry at this:

White Paper

A great man once said to me:
write whatever you want,
but on the condition -
it should be an improvement
on the blank white page.

Blank white paper
is more important
than what I write now.
My poetry
is in the white spaces
between the words.

Like news about the men
who disappeared before dawn,
like seeds buried in the soil,
like the truth that hides
between the heavy headlines,
like a fragrant green flower,
the more I write
the more poetry there is

in the white space between the words.

Nara

(my art teacher taught me that it was the space between objects that I should concentrate on and not the objects themselves...one of the most important things I learnt at school)

sorry to hog space but just wanted to say that thiS poem is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! thank you Hes x

[Alf]

Me and Stef will be doing the Wadsworth Trog Alf, assuming I can find my matching his and hers water wings. Are you having a run out?

No I am not running it DT. My leg injury is pain free now and I am back running but the Trog is a long hard race so I am not going to risk a reoccurence of the injury. I hope you and Stef have an enjoyable run though and (if she hasn't already seen it?) don't forget to point out the plaque to Ted Hughes just after you cross the bridge at Lumb falls. http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/news/news07/102.html

[Alf]

An article on poetry and mental illness on the bbc website...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12368624

Very interesting reading. It looks like there was a prog. on it yesterday on radio 4. Now on iPlayer

Well as a not very good poet I must be sane but the rest of you are as mad as a box of frogs

[freckle]

Ooooo I found a (LUSH) blast from the past..

As Our Bloods Separate
David Constantine

As our bloods separate the clock resumes,
I hear the wind again as our hearts quieten.
We were a ring: the clock ticked round us.
For that time and the wind was deflected.

The clock pecks everything to the bone.
The wind enters through the broken eyes.
Of houses and through their wide mouths
And scatters the ashes from the hearth.

Sleep. Do not let go my hand.


ps alfster...i reckon deep down you are as mad as the rest of us? .........x

[Harry H Howgill]

Well as a not very good poet I must be sane but the rest of you are as mad as a box of frogs

It all depends on the population you are comparing yourself against. Don't forget you run up mountains! That's insane by most people's standards. :-) ribbit ribbit